Saturday, 29 July 2017

J.M. DeBord | Dream Interpretation, Symbolism & The Subconscious

A deep dive into the mechanics of the subconscious reveals how recurring nightmares and bizarre symbols act as a diagnostic map for personal transformation.

By The Higherside Chats Free Show | 1h 18m listen | 18 chapters
J.M. DeBord | Dream Interpretation, Symbolism & The Subconscious cover

About this episode

J.M. DeBord, the prolific author known as Rad Owl on Reddit, joins Greg Carlwood to decode the complex architecture of the human subconscious. DeBord details the mechanics of his 450-page Dream Interpretation Dictionary and explains how the psychological theories of Carl Jung provide a necessary bridge between psychiatric language and profound spiritual experiences. The discussion centers on the transition from biological memory processing to the deeper spirit layers that manifest during REM sleep.

Modern economic structures often reduce individuals to worker drones, but DeBord argues that dreaming remains a universal tool for spiritual development and personal manifestation. He cites the work of Bruce Lipton to explain how alignment between the conscious ego and the subconscious mind creates internal peace. Specific symbols are analyzed as diagnostic tools: vehicles represent life control, basements house suppressed trauma like divorce or childhood grief, and zombies signify stagnation in dead relationships. DeBord also addresses the biological reality of sleep paralysis and REM atonia, noting how the brain pulls from a dark well of imagery to create shadow figures and alien abductions when the body wakes before the mind.

A graphic anecdote involving a playwright and a foreign client illustrates how the subconscious uses obscene imagery to signal professional frustration and compromised integrity. DeBord outlines his Dreams 1-2-3 system as a practical method for listeners to translate their own recurring metaphors, such as the common waiter station stress dream, into actionable life changes. The episode concludes with Greg Carlwood reflecting on his recent travels to Tulum and teasing upcoming research into darker paranormal themes with Tracy Twyman.


CHAPTER 01 / 18 Discussion

J.M. DeBoard, Dream Interpretation Dictionary and Reddit Expertise

Host Greg Carlwood introduces J.M. DeBoard, a prolific author and dream expert known as Rad Owl on Reddit. DeBoard discusses his extensive work, including the 450-page Dream Interpretation Dictionary, which covers symbols ranging from aliens to zombies. The introduction establishes DeBoard's background in decoding the signs and symbols of the dream state for a wide audience.

j.m. deboard· rad owl· reddit· dream interpretation dictionary· dreams 1-2-3

00:05 This prop and masters almost surely have a clearly maybe something there. And until you've thoroughly tested every last course just to think, you know the less you really do! That's true Dr. Seuss Where would we be without TAT? Oh they're lying to us just don't look without TAT The higher side Jack shows Alright, Hiresight Shedders. Life is a strange and mysterious thing that the collective brainpower of the planet's people past and present really haven't gotten that far into figuring out Is it a consciousness-controlled romp through the material plane for the sake of smelling roses neat and chocolate? Is it a virus unpacking itself and evolving until it can build its own gods or is it some cosmic school for self development where we swim up the spiritual river like salmon destined to spawn

01:10 Folks, we have no idea. But what we do know is that we spend about a third of our whole earthly experience in sleep mode. Unconscious, unaware and ultimately unleashed into a different experience altogether the dream time. And while we must sleep and dream to live, we dedicate little time to understanding what might be the weirdest aspect of life when you get down to it? Are dreams really just screensavers for active minds while the body recharges or should we be pulling out powerful meaning from the symbols and messages delivered by a subconscious yearning to be acknowledged Most of us have probably had times where a dream felt like more than just a dream, and with us to sort out this mess and better understand the signs and symbols of the Dream State is The Great Decoder himself J.M. DeBoard! JM is the author of Dreams 1-2-3 Remember Interpret And Live Your Dreams, and more recently The Heavy Tome That Found Its Way To Hireside Studios

02:05 The Dream Interpretation Dictionary. Signs, symbols and meanings. Nearly 450 pages of alphabetically organized aspects that many people encounter in their dreams from aliens to zombies and everything in between. He's also a frequent partaker in the sacrament we call Reddit where he is known as Rad Owl the Reddit dream expert A respectable title if I do say so myself And I can't wait to get down to it JmDeBoard welcome to The Higher Side Oh Greg, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me! Yeah man thanks for being here I did have a lot of fun with the dream interpretation dictionary i think A lot of people feel like there IS some meaning in what they dream but very little In our waking life really provides us with the skills to decode them unless we really dedicate some effort

CHAPTER 02 / 18 Discussion

Carl Jung, Personal Journey into Dream Analysis

J.M. DeBoard recounts his mid-20s transition into dream work, sparked by the writings of Larry Pescevento and the psychological theories of Carl Jung. He describes how Jung’s work provided a psychiatric language for spiritual experiences, leading him to help friends and eventually the Reddit community. This path culminated in a publishing contract and a mission to explain dreams as personal stories for growth.

carl jung· larry pescevento· subconscious· psychiatry· reddit

02:55 on our own. And so I'm curious how this kind of became your thing, obviously others have tried to wear the crown but what got you into dream interpretation and what makes your approach different or maybe even more accurate than what's already out there? Well you know in your introduction you talk about how we are looking, We know that life is more than just this biological matter that is spinning through space and there is something more to all of this. And our dreams seem to provide a portal to it except Dreams can appear to be very disconnected from your everyday reality. You know, you have a dream about being back in high school but that was 20 years ago when you graduated and you're standing there and it's this teacher you don't know and your pants are down around your ankles and people are laughing at you and you're going wait I'm not in high school anymore why would I dream about this? Well if you break it down there is some kind of meaning behind it

03:51 So I started off, I really was. I've always been interested in exploring the mind especially the parts of it that we're not very aware of you might call it the subconscious or the unconscious You know most of our mind is beyond our awareness ninety five to ninety nine percent of the mind is unconscious so that means this little tip of the iceberg that we know it are as our conscious mind does our ego or as ourselves, is just this very small part of the big picture so of course I've always been interested in anything they can tell me more about how we take and how we really work inside of ourselves but greg there's another part of which was.

04:32 when I was in my mid-20s, I was looking for answers. It was sort of the classic situation where you know, I'm hitting a wall in my life and I'm looking and not finding what I am looking for. You know, then very synchronous experience, a neighbor friend of mine showed me chapters from a book printed off of a computer this is back in mid 90's so you couldn't just like hop on Amazon grab your favorite book right? So I found this guy, this writer. His name is Larry Pescevento and I was reading the chapters of his book that he was passing around among friends and he referred to dreams and he referred to a guy named Dr Carl Young, the Swiss psychiatrist and anyone who delves into The Mystic in The Unknown is going to run across Carl Young at some point because he is our captain. He is the one who

05:22 explored those depths and I caught on to Jung, and it was just like something lit a fire in my mind. I found somebody who could take these things that were batting around in my head that were related to the psyche and spirituality and religion and God and experience and soul and all of that and put it into the language of psychiatry. And it just resonated with me very deeply So I started a very deep exploration and I found in through my dreams that I was gaining the answers and the insights that I needed. And then, I started going public with it first among friends and stuff but just sort of helping them with their dreams

06:05 I met my wife Lisa and she was in a transition in her life about 10 years ago. And, I helped her understand the dreams that she was having and how they were connecting with her life. And I went wow you know? I think I really am onto something here! So then I dropped by Reddit yes our friend Reddits where we explore many different subjects and there is a dreams forum there. And I just started talking to people about their dreams that I wasn't presenting myself as an expert or as an interpreter just somebody who had really delved into the subject and had a real deep personal interest and fascination with it. So from there, I got great feedback from people and I decided I needed to bottle the magic so I wrote dreams 123 and that opened up the door into the publishing industry which had been closed to me. I tried I worked in journalism

06:55 And I worked in various media, television and radio. And I had tried to find an agent. I wrote a novel. I had these great ideas about being an author and you know writing books that really changed people's lives and open their minds and all this but boy those doors were closed. When I came to my agent with the idea for a book about dreams she wasn't even my agent at the time She read my proposal and two weeks, I kid you not. After two weeks after she signed me, I had my publishing contract so it's really been a heck of a journey since then. I have gone really deep with this subject and I find that I have a way of explaining it to people that strips out the jargon and some of the academic talk and it really puts in terms of understanding your dreams as stories about yourself and your life with the purpose of helping you learn and grow. That is

07:45 bottom line right there. And if you start there, then everything builds on top of that into this structure in your mind that can help you to analyze and understand your dreams. So that kind of makes a short story long Greg but that's how I got in The Dream Interpretation. Boom! I love it can't argue with that. It is nice when you find your wheelhouse isn't So if we wanted to maybe lay a nice base in regards to sleep and dreaming from a scientific perspective, what can you tell us? What do you think is really happening there? Why do we do it? Well the first thing to understand and I go over this in my book The Dream Interpretation Dictionary. Is that you need to understand the reasons why you dream There are biological, there are mental, physical reasons, spiritual reasons emotional reasons

CHAPTER 03 / 18 Discussion

Biological and Spiritual Functions of Dreaming

Dreaming serves as a critical mechanism for processing and collating memories from the previous day into the long-term psyche. Beyond biological memory management, dreams act as an emotional release valve, preventing psychological overload by clearing emotional storage banks. A deeper "spirit layer" also exists within dreams, facilitating personal meaning and helping individuals connect with their inner selves.

memory processing· emotional storage· psyche· short term memory· spirit layer

08:34 And the bottom line, really which is agreed upon from all the different disciplines that have looked at dreaming is that you dream to process and collate your memories. You're taking the experiences that you've had since the last time that you slept and you're processing them more deeply into your being, into your psyche. So all of those memories are there they're stored in short term memory and when you go to sleep and you dream, your mind is figuring out where this new experience these new memories where does it fit into who and what you are? So that's first the second thing that they do is they help to get into your emotions

09:14 They delve down in there they trigger emotions they remind you of what you felt they help you to more deeply process those emotions and some ways what dreams are doing is just clearing out the memory banks in the emotional storage banks. They're helping you to recharge, you have to get some of that released out of you so that you can wake up the next day and go okay I'm ready to take on the world again imagine if you woke up and you felt the same way as when you went to sleep. Imagine if all of the emotion and feeling and thoughts and everything else was still there, and you just continue adding on to it? And then the next day you wake up and you add onto that they would get to a point where I think that most people would not be able to handle it anymore. It would just be head explode. You know there's too much so your dreams are really helping you to process this day-to-day activity

10:07 and helping you a to release it in B, to figure out how it fits into you. To sort of encoded it sort of like what a computer does when its processes information more deeply into its circuitry and its chips and hard drive and stuff like that then there's a deeper layer called the spirit layer. There is this thing inside of you that is wanting to have more meaning and satisfaction and fulfillment from your life And it often gets overlooked or neglected. Sometimes we're just too busy to pay much attention to this side of ourselves that is trying to find expression, it wants to live you know? To be or not to be that's the question It's how much life are you going to grab out of this experience How much are you going to engage and dive down into this experience

10:59 Dreams are your facilitator for that. They help you to understand what's really going on underneath the surface, they help to bring things forward so that you don't overlook them. They want you to connect very deeply inside of yourself and also with the world and people who are in it So your dreams are helping you on a nightly basis or whenever you sleep, it could be a daily basis. They're helping you they're trying to get you to learn and grow to engage with your life to find more meaning and fulfillment and satisfaction from it It can go deeper than that, Greg. And I'm sure that in the rest of our talk here that we'll delve into some of the psychic side of dreams, dreams about finding soulmates and the love of your life and dreams about being abducted by aliens. We'll get into the symbolism and all that but for now, I think the bottom line is you dream to learn and to grow it helps you to be able to handle your daily life better. And it helps you to find that deep person that's inside of yourself

CHAPTER 04 / 18 Discussion

Subconscious Alignment, Escaping the Worker Drone Mindset

The modern economic system often reduces individuals to joyless worker drones, but dreaming remains a universal spiritual development tool. Alignment between the conscious ego and the subconscious mind is necessary for personal manifestation and peace. When these two sides of the mind agree, as discussed in the works of Bruce Lipton, individuals can more effectively pursue creative and spiritual goals.

bruce lipton· worker drone· meditation· manifestation· subconscious mind

12:03 Yeah, man. I think that makes a lot of sense and kind of like you said, dreaming to me is like a baked in mechanism to entice us to further explore the mysteries of life and consciousness because the authoritarian system can reduce us down to joyless worker drones who are overly obsessed with artificial distractions like debt and sports. They can leave meditation and spiritual development out of our entire education and try to ban entheogenic exploration, but from slaves right on up to kings you can bet that they're going to be going into a trance state when the sun doesn't shine. And that is a hell of a thing to take for granted really Boy, you know it's kind of like everybody dreams and everybody pays taxes. Well most everybody does and there are a few things basically the point is that there are a few things in life that are common to all of us I find as a moderator at Reddit You know i'm reading sometimes as many as a couple dozen dream reports per day That's the good days when I really have time to devote

13:03 And I get a very good feel for what people are dreaming right now and why. And you mentioned that feeling of sort of just being a worker drone who's going through life without finding anything deeper to it? And in my experience as a moderator, as a dream interpreter and just as a dreamer I find that dreams are really focusing in on that aspect of life. They want you to find something deeper for yourself if you need to disconnect from the rat race, your dreams will show you how to do it and may not be able to happen immediately but they will guide you towards finding that thing in your life that's going to help you

13:50 Get more out of it and if that means no longer being a worker drone, that's fine. You know some people are happy with their work is only to get a paycheck and benefits so that they can raise a family or whatever it is that they want to do outside of work So they don't always have to have work. That's the most creative for the most fulfilling It's just you know steady independable was really what they're looking for But if you do want more from life, if you do want to be a more creative person. If you want to be a more spiritual person your dreams will be glad to guide you in that endeavor The unconscious mind is always in the background reviewing what you as an ego or conscious mind What you are doing? What you are thinking? What your desires are? What your goals and ambitions are

14:42 So when you hit upon something that the unconscious mind agrees with, when you make a decision that you're going to do something like let's say You decide I'm going to make time to meditate because i want to find that deep inner center of my being. I want to find that calm and that peace well, That is something your unconscious mind can really agree with you know it can say okay I am gonna facilitate this I am gonna help you with that goal together we are gonna march forward towards this and when you have both sides in the mind working together You can really get to that goal. I listened to your interview with Bruce Lipton and he talks about this too, that you can decide something consciously. You can say that you believe something. You can have the power of positive thinking or whatever but if it's not resonating with the other side of your mind, if the two sides of your mind are not in agreement well now they're gonna pull on different directions and its just gonna become this big energy vacuum. It's gonna suck into that black hole and you're not going to get to that place where you're trying to get to

15:44 When the two sides of the mind agree and dreams are a great way of helping you to hash these things out between the two sides of the mind and come to agreement, well when that happens you are able to more easily manifest the things in your life that you can imagine for yourself. And that you desire and that your heart wants. Those are great points. And, you know dreams can be so surreal and obviously not all dreams are created equal how can we determine if and where there is meaning? And which types of dreams or symbols to prioritize when we're trying to look for that meaning? Great question I get asked this a lot

CHAPTER 05 / 18 Discussion

REM Sleep, Identifying Meaningful Dream Stories

While humans spend roughly 25% of sleep in REM stages, not all dream imagery is inherently meaningful; some is merely the brain clearing short-term memory. Meaningful content typically emerges when imagery coalesces into engaging stories that resonate emotionally with the dreamer. These narratives serve as the most important information to carry from the dream state into waking life for analysis.

rem sleep· neurological process· narrative· dream memory· brain farts

16:28 So I want to delve into this because your audience needs to know, your listeners they need to know the answer to this question. Because you can dream in REM stage sleep for up to 25% of the time while you are asleep that means 25% of the time you are in a stage of sleep that involves intense and vivid dreaming if you sleep for eight hours that is two hours of dream material that you can potentially wake up with It's all gonna be calling out to you to do something with it will fortunately a lot of that processing happens subconsciously.

17:03 And you already know the meaning of your dreams because they are invented deep in your mind. It's just it's a part of your mind that most people are kind of disconnected from so it seems like their dreams kinda come out of nowhere and that they are meaningless, A lot of people come away with this studies have shown that more than half of people wake up with little to no memory of their dreams And I haven't seen the latest numbers, but I can tell you that around the same amount of the population thinks that dreams are meaningless. It's just brain farts. You know it's just this biological process that's going on that's producing imagery and the brain is taking that imagery and trying to weave it together into some kind of meaning because the brain has a proclivity for trying to find meaning in pattern in everything well

17:54 Here's the secret sauce for you, Greg. Some dreams are meaningless they are just the warm-up they are your mind that starts producing imagery and oftentimes it's very basic sort of patterned imagery or memories from the day Like let's say that you're a trucker, you spend all day on the highway. You get to your hotel or to your home, you plop down in your bed and start to dream and dream in the sense of there is just imagery behind your eyes. You are going to dream about the highway, you know? You are going to dream about what you were doing during the day it's just gonna be sort of review this but without even meaningfulness to it, its more like

18:33 Let's clear out these short-term memory banks. We're going to just spit all this stuff out and your dreams will provide a view into what is basically a neurological or mental process now as the night goes on and your body first gets the rest that it needs, your REM stages will grow longer First, you have these long stages of deep sleep. It's just deep dead sleep. You might have some imagery behind your eyes but it's not going to be meaningful when it gets meaningful is when that imagery forms into stories Bottom line right there boom stories and when the stories engage you when they get interesting in your mind and your feelings that when it engages with these stories, that's when you know that you're getting to the meaningful content.

19:23 The symbols in the dreams that dreams take your memories they turn them into symbols and then the symbols turn into stories when the stories get really interesting, dad is when you engage the most with them and then when you engage the most with those tend to be the dreams that are also the most memorable. So you wake up in the morning and what you were left with, if you are like most people who spend at least a little bit of time with your dreams. You can remember maybe five to 10 minutes of content. That 5-10 minutes is the most important information that you need to draw out of dreamland and pull into your waking life, and do some deeper thinking on it. Sometimes it doesn't even necessarily have to be analyzed just look at the dream as a story thats what it is we can all analyze stories You don't have to have a PhD, you dont' have to wear the guru robes

20:18 Anyone can understand the story everyday of our lives we are taking in stories and every day we are creating stories especially the narratives of our lives we take our lives and return it into a narrative a narrative is a story so when that happens you have. This base of knowledge inside of you about how stories work and that knowledge can be used to tell you help dreams work So the most meaningful dreams are the ones that stand out. They're the most memorable and they're the most story like, and they are the most engaging to you. You can pull out five or 10 minutes of the most meaningful content and really focus on that. The rest of it? Well, if there's something that's important there and you either don't remember it or you're unable to understand or analyze it, It'll come back

CHAPTER 06 / 18 Discussion

Recurring Dreams, The Waiter Station Stress Metaphor

Recurring dreams represent the "lowest hanging fruit" for interpretation, often signaling persistent life themes or stressors. An example is provided involving a recurring dream of a crowded waiter station, which symbolizes an overwhelming waking-life to-do list. Identifying these repeating symbols allows dreamers to create an "answer key" for decoding their subconscious messages more efficiently.

recurring dreams· waiter station· stress· to-do list· symbolism

21:09 This is one of the things that i teach in my workshops and lectures. A lot of people who come to them are new to dream work, and they ask me what should I focus on? And I say the recurring themes imagery from your dreams we all have recurring dreams there are different types of them and I explain the difference in my book But you have the recurring dreams are what I call the lowest hanging fruit on the tree. It's the easiest to reach out and grab hold of and pull close to yourself, and then to analyze it and understand it I'll give you a quick example. I have recurring dreams about working in a restaurant as a waiter, I did this for years and the younger part of my life and i haven't done it in years but I still dream about it on a almost nightly basis there will be some dream in their where I am in a restaurant and most the time those dreams that stand out to me are the ones where I am

22:07 I look out at my station, a waiter station is all the tables that you're responsible for. And I've gone from no one to to pact. This is the waiter's nightmare, by the way is that suddenly having too much to do you want to have like a nice flow of work coming to you so that you can handle it all and you can give everybody the experience they're looking for and you make good tips off of it right? It's when you get overwhelmed is when everything starts to fall apart and when you start having that very heavy stress from the job in my dreams this is what happens over and over again I go from zero to 1,000 miles an hour

22:44 How am i gonna do all of this will this is what i figured out from analyzing these dreams is that the theme connects in with the idea of having too much to do, in my waking life i have too much to do i have too much that's competing for my attention. That is what all of those people who are in my dream and they're sitting at tables and they're reading menus, and they're waiting for me to come along and take their order and deliver their drinks and their food. And all that's what they symbolize. They symbolize the things in my life that need my attention. It can be people in my life that need my attention, but it can also just be the things that are on my to-do list

23:24 So now when I have a recurring dream like that, when that pops up. I know to look at my daily life and go okay i either need to really buckle down and get things knocked off of my to do list or I need the simplify I need to get a few of those things off of my lists in just realize hey maybe my ambitions are larger than my ability to be able to achieve all of them that's okay to pare down that list somehow So look at your recurring dreams start there they are the most important. Themes in the stories that pop up in your dreams you gonna find them there if you start with your recurring dreams and you can start to understand some of the imagery in the symbolism, you can use it as your answer key so now when you have another dream

24:12 that is about the same subject or brings up the same sort of story theme, you can wake up and you immediately have some of the groundwork laid. You know, you wake up and you go OK I understand this part of a dream what does the rest of it mean? And when you have that answer key from figuring out certain parts that recur in dreams now you can go to the rest of the dream and figure it out more easily Right on. Yeah, that's great advice for getting started and to dive a little deeper into that so if dreaming is some form of symbolic communication with our subconscious to get better at receiving the message it's sort of like we have to get familiar with the language Of course most languages have a structure or set of rules various ways to emphasize certain things over others

CHAPTER 07 / 18 Discussion

Universal Dream Structure, Past and Present Symbolism

Dreams often follow a structural template similar to the inverted pyramid in journalism, starting with a subject and moving through the past, present, and future. A common setting like a childhood home often refers to the past, while physical wounds in a dream may symbolize unhealed emotional trauma. This structure helps the dreamer identify the origin and current status of psychological issues.

inverted pyramid· journalism· symbolism· family home· emotional wounds

25:01 Is there a reliable universal structure to the way that the subconscious communicates, like highlighting things in certain colors or forms or just certain forms of emphasis? Anything else like that. You know, great way to think about dreams is they do use a language and the language is symbolism. So that is really the place to begin. And decoding symbolism as one of the first things that I teach about dream interpretation Now from that, and we can launch more into how to decode symbolism. We can do that a little bit later now you ask if there is a way that dreams have a structure to them? Is there a universal way that they create their stories and I won't say universal but I have noticed

25:46 pattern. And as somebody with a journalism background, I know the structure of the way that you're supposed to present most stories. It's the inverted pyramid structure and I have recognized that dreams use sort of a structure like that it's a call it a template and that many dreams will follow that template. And here it is It starts off by giving the subject of the dream. When somebody gives me a description of a dream, I often find the subject in the first sentence or two and then what it's going to do is it's going to review the past, it's gonna talk about the present and its gonna point towards the future

26:27 So, let's say that this is a dream is addressing an issue in your life and it started when your parents divorced and you were a teenager. And something happened to you that caused a rift inside of you—it might have been many years ago—but that rift has not healed. Let's just use this as an example. puts you in your family home where you used to live, where the divorce happened. And it somehow in the first scene is going to say that this dream is about what happened back then

27:08 and then it's going to show you where you are in the present of your life. If there is something that is unhealed, It might show a way...it'll speak in symbolism. It might show it as a wound on your body. It might project out that wound onto someone else like let's say a sibling who was there who also experienced the divorce Now you're looking out and you're seeing your sibling, and your sibling is wounded or covered in blood. Well that could make people really distressed but it is a language of symbolism And the blood or the wound represents the emotional, the psychological wound Of the experience of the family divorce It puts you in a setting of the old family home to refer to the past It says this is the place where you lived when this wounding experience happened

CHAPTER 08 / 18 Discussion

Divorce Trauma, The Basement and Tornado Metaphor

A specific case from Reddit involves a dreamer seeing a tornado while in his childhood home, which symbolized the sudden trauma of his parents' divorce. The basement setting represented suppressed memories that were "out of sight, out of mind" for years. The dream's resolution suggested that facing this emotional turbulence would eventually lead to psychological healing and "blue skies."

reddit· divorce· tornado· basement· psychological healing

27:58 And then it's going to point towards what's coming up in the future, which is if you are dreaming about this. It probably means that you are ready to heal from it even if you don't consciously realize that there is energy that's coming up from deep in the mind, in the subconscious part of the mind and that energy can be used to help to heal Now I'll give you a quick example from a dream that, I use this actually in my book. There was a man who came to Reddit who said that he had this dream that he was back in his family home He's there with his sister. He hears on the radio that there is a big tornado coming. He looks outside and sees the black clouds and they are rolling in real fast

28:43 He realizes that they need to get to the basement. He goes down to the basement and his sister is already there, she screams at the top of her lungs We should have seen it coming. Now you might think that she's referring to the tornado and symbolically she is but what she's really referring to is what I'll get to in just a moment In the opening of The Dream we see this subject, its about his family home His parents aren't in the scene but the storm coming is telling him something That's the symbolic language that says Because something is coming and it might be very tumultuous in your life. It might upend things for you because why? Because you have something that you haven't dealt with, it's been 10 years since your parents divorced but you haven't dealt with he can feel this but its feelings that are way in the background so he's not very conscious of them yet

29:40 When he goes down into the basement, what that means is down to where? Into your memories. Especially the memories you are keeping out of sight because what is a basement used for in many situations it's to store things So your dream starts with that idea and it creates an idea around it, and it uses the language of symbolism. It says okay well its in the basement because its out-of-sight out-of-mind and what for you as a dreamer is out-of-sight out-of-mind? The experience of your parents divorce you were a teenager at the time and you just sort of went on with your life if you didn't deal with any of it you just went on with your life which is how many teenagers do you was traumatic situations like that, okay don't bother me with this i'm fifteen now i've got my friends out one of no.

30:34 I don't want to have to deal with this. So the real clue to the dream that ties it all together, and I find this in most dreams is that there is one thing that will stand out to me as very important. In this dream It's the sister's statement she says why didn't we see it coming? What she's referring to is the parents divorce it was something that they saw all the signs you know the dark clouds were gathering in their family relationship the parents were having some trouble but for the most part they kept it from their kids and then all of a sudden the bomb drops.

31:13 The tornado descends out of the sky. The parents say, hey we're getting divorced and the kids are like huh? You know like oh okay I guess if we look back on it we could have kind of seen the signs coming but you know hey this is still a big surprise to us Now it also speaks to a deeper level of what's going on with the dreamer, because these memories are coming up at that time of his life for a reason. And it is because he needs to go back and deal with it He needs to find the part of himself that has lost or split off from that experience His sister was in the dream because she was part of that experience too

31:56 So, this is the way that dreams take a situation. They show you what happened in the past. They show you what's going on in the present and then what could be happening in the future and in this case, what could be happening for this guy is that he's gonna go through a period it's gonna be very emotionally turbulent for him. You know? The tornado was gonna descend and it might upend his life a little bit especially as internal life but If he does that, there is sort of a promise that afterwards will be blue skies and sunshine waiting for him. In other words, he's going to heal the past and it's going to help him to better live in the present.

CHAPTER 09 / 18 Discussion

Vehicle Symbolism, Control and Life Direction

Driving a vehicle in a dream typically symbolizes the degree of control an individual has over their life's direction and speed. Being a passenger suggests that another entity, such as a parent or a workplace supervisor, is currently in the driver's seat of the dreamer's life. These symbols vary based on who is operating the vehicle and the dreamer's comfort level with the situation.

driving· car· passenger· supervisor· control

32:37 Wow, I think that's a pretty great example of an interpretation template for a pretty specific situation. I think that makes a lot of sense and let's get deeper into that symbolism interpretation in general maybe some popular examples, popular dreams people have for maximum relatability what would you say are some of the most common scenes and symbols in dreams? And what they might mean Well a very common theme that pops up is the dream about being in a car or driving a vehicle and it often refers to the daily progress of course of your life and the amount of control that you have because when you are driving a car, you have your hands on wheel.

33:22 and you have your feet on the pedals, and you are able to control the speed and direction of the vehicle which translated into dream language. It means the speed and direction of your life now what does it say when you are a passenger in a vehicle? And somebody else is driving it can mean that you are not controlling the speed and direction of your life or it could represent an area of your life like if it's your supervisor who's in the driver seat of your car, well now you know that your supervisor is controlling the speed and direction of your work life. It could be anyone it could be a parent who's in the driver seat. Teenagers dream about this a lot they'll be in a car with their parent and the parent is driving because the parent is the one who's in control of their life right? Or if they are the one who has to take over the wheel what does that say about the parents ability to lead

CHAPTER 10 / 18 Discussion

Home and School Imagery, Preparedness and Growth

A home in a dream represents the construction of one's life and the state of the psyche, with new rooms signifying the discovery of new personal attributes. Similarly, school settings often appear when a person feels unprepared for a challenge in their adult life, such as a difficult work project. These "exam" dreams reflect the dreamer's internal anxiety regarding their current skills and responsibilities.

home· school· exam· manuscript· psyche

34:13 So that is one theme. Another one is being in your home and you are either just sort of going through what appears to be a kind of ordinary situation with your family or whoever you live with, or if you were exploring your home and this is a great chance for us to look at how dreams use the language of symbolism What is a home? It is the place where you live. What is your mind? It's the place where your consciousness lives. What is your body? It's the place where your mind and consciousness live." So, a home can represent that sort of metaphorical idea of the place where you live

34:52 Also, a home is something that is constructed. So a home can mean it can symbolize the ways that you are building up your life now take an idea such as A very common dream theme Is you are in your home It may not look like the actual home That you live in but You just know when to dream This is my home And you find a new room or a new section To the home Well what does that mean? Take the previous ideas. Home is your life, it's the life you build or construct for yourself." Oh well hey if you find a new room then it can mean that you are finding out something new about yourself this is you discovering opening up some new area of your life or of your psyche of your being it can be a new area in your feelings it can be a new area of

35:44 knowledge. It can be an avenue for exploration, for something that you want to find out more about yourself in particular. So homes driving and cars and then we can get into things that are say more specific themes being in school I mentioned this earlier just briefly one of the great ways of interpreting a dream is start off by stepping back in simplifying the ideas that are presented in the dreams Brainstorm ideas like other words that can be used in association with the characters and settings you know like a police officer could mean authority, you know teacher could mean i'm learning something school has similar sorts of ideas but we need to expand beyond the idea of just book

36:33 learning. Dreams can address what you are learning academically if you were in school, you are very likely to dream frequently about school and being in school and the subjects related to school. But if you were somebody who say hasn't touched a classroom in 20 years and your dreaming about being in school all the time, you know it has nothing to do really with academic learning unless of course that's going on in some way in your life But what else are you learning? You're learning about yourself. You're learning about your life, you could be learning more about work I find very often a theme in the dreams of people who have encountered something at work and they are unprepared for it. They will dream about being back in school, and its exam day and they haven't been there all semester or they find out that they have more classes to take in order to graduate. I have that theme quite often in my dreams And I've been able to interpret and understand those dreams as I have encountered something in my waking life

37:37 And I don't feel prepared for it. School is what prepares us for our work life, right? Well now you have a dream that's showing you in school and when you are unprepared for an exam just simply look at it as what is something important going on in my life for which I feel unprepared simplify it down to that and then oftentimes you can make that connection and go oh yeah Hey, you know well I'm writing a book. I'm an author this actually happened to me and I am used to the journalism format of writing where I might pump out 500 or 1000 or 2000 words And this is a 60 thousand word manuscript in man Is it a lot to wrap my mind around there is a lot of information here

38:26 I'm not used to organizing all of this information and writing into a coherent structure where you start at page one, and you end on page 240. And all of it flows together there is a skill set for that that most people are not going to be prepared for when they're in school because they're not writing 240 page papers. I mean, unless you have a master's thesis or a PhD dissertation or something that you are not dealing with work that it's that long So being in school, being at home driving in your car these are very common themes. I have one that has come up over and over again and maybe because I'm a moderator at Reddit's and it's more of a younger crowd that is very tuned into modern media...I get a lot of dreams about zombies!

CHAPTER 11 / 18 Discussion

Zombie and Ex-Partner Symbolism, Stagnation and Transformation

Zombies in dreams can represent a feeling of being surrounded by mindless people or a personal state of lethargy and stagnation. Because zombies are "stuck" between life and death, they often symbolize dead relationships where hope still lingers. Dreams about ex-partners frequently serve as symbols for specific qualities or lessons the dreamer needs to integrate into their current life.

zombies· ex-partner· relationship· transformation· lethargy

39:18 What is it? You know, I mean, I've watched the walking dead and I dug it and everything you know. But man this theme pops up a lot now if you step back from it and you really simplify what is a zombie well there's different ways of looking at it in your dreams can use these different ways of looking at it to create symbolism to tell stories about what's going on in your life the events in your life and also what's going on inside you in your thoughts and then your feelings So you have the dream about a zombie and of course you have to look at it with other details of the story, To really understand which use of symbolism that dream is using. All of the details of the dream tie together so if it's a zombie thats trying to eat your brains well thats one thing and could mean there is something sapping all of life or intelligence out of you

40:14 You know, maybe you've been watching too much mindless television when it's like a zombie that's eating your brain. This is a simplistic example but people really do have this imagery this type of imagery pop up in their dreams but a zombie could mean that you feel like you are surrounded by mindless people the way that a zombie moves slowly and sluggishly back and describe how you feel about what's going on in your life right now You might feel lethargic you know you might feel slow but now lets get a little deeper. A zombie is something that is transforming but it got stuck between two

40:51 stages. One is alive, one is dead and then you have your zombie that is in between it's not fully alive, it's not fully dead right? We'll start with that idea what could that describe about what's going on in your life? What kind of situations could it describe Let's say that you broke up with someone, you had a relationship. You broke up with someone and you are still holding out hope for that relationship? Well the relationship is dead but your hope for it is still alive. It's a zombie! Okay, so this is how dreams create symbolism you know I just talked about the ex...I get A LOT of dreams people coming to Reddit and they want to know why they're dreaming about their ex You know somebody that they used to love and maybe they still do love them but they're not together as a couple anymore

41:43 Well, there are a lot of reasons for this. Different potential reasons for it and most likely it is either that A you were learning from the experience so that you don't repeat the same mistakes or B you are recognizing something that's going on presently in your life that somehow reminds you of the past or C You have this thing going on where You are reminded of the past and you want the person and the qualities that they had or that time of life. And the dream uses it as a symbol to tell a story around, just for example, you see your ex in the dream because that is somebody who when you were in a relationship with that person, it brought out the best in you.

42:36 You really wanted to be the best person you could be because you were motivated by the desire to preserve the relationship Now what's going on in your life? Are you still trying to be the best that you can be If so, or even if not that person can come up in the dream to represent that idea and then the other details of the dream will form together around that idea. To tell the story about what's going on presently in your life it refers to the past. It talks about the present and then appoints towards the future this is the standard structure of what most dreams do

CHAPTER 12 / 18 Discussion

Alien Abduction Dreams, Cold War Fears and Foreignness

Alien and UFO imagery often symbolizes things that are "foreign" or outside the scope of a dreamer's normal experience. Historically, these dreams increased during the Cold War as a manifestation of the fear that ICBMs could drop from the sky at any moment. Modern interpretations often link alien abductions to fears of being upended or separated from one's family and familiar environment.

aliens· ufo· cold war· icbm· foreignness

43:13 So, we can get into one other one real quick and I know that your audience having listened to your show. I know your audience is going like this one aliens and UFOs in alien abductions. Hell yeah! This theme seems to come up a lot And the ones that I talked about first, the dreams about your home, dreams about your car. Those are the most common themes but then if you look at call them the outer circle of themes that are still popular they arise a lot in people's dreams. You get a lot of dreams about aliens and alien like subjects and what I find is is that a dream begins with the idea of alien and then simplify it

43:57 Now, if you think of an alien what is another word for alien? An alien is foreign. How can you weave an idea or a story around that idea? Well, you might be dreaming about something that is foreign to you it's outside the scope of your experience. You might be dreaming about a foreigner Take some of the reports about aliens and people how they interact with them. And now you can create other stories, you can address a subject such as the aliens are here to give us their cosmic wisdom and knowledge well that could mean that you were looking for something knowledge wise especially spiritual knowledge it is outside of the norm

44:42 Aliens abduct people from their homes. This is a common story Well, how could that be used to relate to what's going on in your life? Well maybe you have a fear of being separated from your family Maybe that fear is just a general fear or maybe You know that let's say you are gonna take a job and it's gonna take you to a new town Well, that means you're going to be separated from your family. An alien and a UFO drops in out of the sky out of nowhere and it upends your life kind of like the tornado that we referred to earlier. Well how can not be used to describe what's going on in your life? Well, it could mean there is something you fear or think is suddenly going to change everything for you

45:29 This theme was very common back during the Cold War when we were constantly having this reminder that the Soviet Union could launch their ICBMs any moment and what's going to happen? They're going to drop down from the sky, and it's going to destroy everything. So people started having a lot of dreams about aliens in order to describe what was going on in their lives fear that something was just going to drop down from the sky and suddenly change or destroy everything. So pretty cool, huh? Some interesting dream symbolism it goes on and on and you know I talk about this in very great depth in my dream dictionary. I really wanted to go into more depth than most dream dictionaries go into because there are so many possibilities presented by every dream symbol and these subjects

46:21 The symbolism is often so personal and the subjects of the dreams are so personal that it is impossible for someone like me sitting at a computer, typing words into a document and then giving it to a publisher and having them print it out and give it to you out there. You know I can't guess everything that's going on in your life but I can teach you how to decode the language of your dreams for yourself So I did it in a dream dictionary format because that's very accessible to people. Mm-hmm Yeah, man It's definitely fascinating and there is actually some debate over if all abduction experiences or alien experiences are dreams or if there might be a connection between the phenomenon and the sleep state

CHAPTER 13 / 18 Discussion

Playwright Anecdote, Obscene Imagery and Creative Frustration

A graphic dream involving a playwright and an alien serves as an example of how the subconscious uses shocking imagery to express professional frustration. The "obscene" acts in the dream symbolized the playwright's feeling of being forced to compromise his creative integrity for a foreign client's money. This aligns with Sigmund Freud's theory that the most absurd dreams often reveal the deepest truths.

playwright· fisting· sigmund freud· symbolism· creative work

47:06 Possibly it's just designed to feel like a dream. But regardless, you also shared with me an example that was pretty extreme I guess we could refer to it as the fisting example Can you tell us about that one? Yeah sure well this is one that I've got to warn your audience I know You know where were all adults here We can handle this This was a real dream and I use it as an example in my book, in the entry for fisting. As in anal fisting okay but its under fisting And it's a great example. So let's delve into it. So the dream opens and the dreamer is observing in third person, he sees a man who it turns out looks a little bit like himself but there's enough distance in the dream for him to just observe and he sees the man be abducted off of the street by an alien who was in a human disguise

48:01 The alien takes the man through a storefront to the back of the store and there he drops his pants and he reveals a fat bald sphincter. All right, he compels the abductee to take his hand and put it inside of the sphincter and then his entire arm and then too well rock back and forth so as the man is compelled to do this The alien starts to glow blue and moan, and he's approaching orgasm.

48:38 the man keeps fisting the alien and the alien then, like this blue light. The human disguise falls off of the alien kind of melts away and now it's full blown alien. The alien is moaning he reaches orgasm and then the man, the abductee dies in horror in a flash of blue light So this was a real dream and I helped to interpret it at Reddit, and this is what we came up with. The man who had the dream is a playwright and he has been commissioned to write a play for a man who was a foreigner so now we have our first clue. Foreigner? Alien? Could there be a connection? Okay

49:28 The second part is the storefront. The storefront in the dream symbolizes the dreamer's public work life, because a storefront is a public place that's related somehow to business and work. So the man's a playwright he's been commissioned by a foreigner an alien to write a play so what does it mean to be abducted? Well In this case, it was that the playwright felt like he wouldn't have been associated with this foreigner and writing the play for this man unless he needed to earn a buck. So it's something that he wouldn't be doing otherwise in his feelings about it are shown graphically in the scene where the abductee fists the alien what that expresses is the man's feeling that his artistic

50:22 Creative side of himself feels like he is being compelled to do something obscene for somebody else's pleasure when you step back from that scene and you simplify it that is what it is saying. He's compelled To do something obscene for somebody else's pleasure now. It's very subjectively based Someone else might say hey you got to earn a buck and if this guy is willing to pay then You just, you know, you danced who was tuned? Well he said look here's the thing The guy doesn't understand our culture and he doesn't understand playwright culture He has this idea of what he wants and it's very much outside of the norm I keep coming to him with my best work And then he's rejecting it in making all these changes, and he's forcing me to go back and kind of dance to his tune This is why he feels abducted another layer of meaning to this. Is that he's forced to do this guys bidding? This foreigner this alien

51:25 So the die in horror as the man orgasms, it's just a very exaggerated—as the alien orgasms and the man who is abducted dies in horror. This is just a very exaggerated way of expressing the feelings of the playwright who was forced to do the bidding of the foreigner. It's It's what one is it's very memorable, but two is even though. It's exaggerated actually expresses how he feels I mean he feels like at any moment He could kind of die in horror you know in the figurative Exaggerated sense that there's a side of him that is really just horrified by what? he's having to do and he's doing it in order to be able to just earn a buck and

52:10 So that right there is a great example of the way that a dream can use this sort of very shocking, sometimes even obscene imagery to create a story around it. And it's very deeply meaningful. In fact, Sigmund Freud said that these type of dreams, they are the most absurd and the most outrageous can often be the most revealing about the dreamer. These are the dreams that a doctor Freud says oh yes tell me about that dream because we can you know we could talk about this one for hours you know there's a lot that we could learn from this

CHAPTER 14 / 18 Discussion

Sleep Paralysis, REM Atonia and Shadow Figures

Sleep paralysis, or REM atonia, occurs when the body remains paralyzed while the mind wakes up, often leading to vivid hallucinations. When a person experiences terror during this state, the brain pulls from its "darkest well" to create imagery like demons, witches, or gray aliens. Many reported alien abduction experiences are likely biological results of this glitch in the sleep cycle.

sleep paralysis· rem atonia· gray aliens· demons· terror

52:48 Another reason why people have alien abduction dreams, especially the ones that start off... There's a commonality to the descriptions. It starts off with I was asleep, I woke up and the UFO was out my window. I was floating off the ground or the little gray guys were gathered around my bed and I look around and I see them and they take me away." This is how these abduction reports often begin. And whenever I hear a UFO abduction report that starts like that, I think in the back of my mind I really wonder whether what you experienced was sleep paralysis. The medical term for it is called REM atonia, so REM is rapid eye movement and atonia means slackness of muscle and what happens as while you are dreaming the signals traveling from your brain down to the body through the nervous system are muted

53:47 Some of it can leak through a little bit like if you dream about running You might twitch a little bit in your legs or you dream about punching something and you might move your arms Or something when people actually do start really kicking their legs hard or punching hard in there dreaming about it It means that there is something, that signal is no longer being muted and it's actually leaking through to the body. And the body is responding to what its seeing in the dream imagery So what happens in sleep paralysis is you wake up and you are still dreaming So what happens is usually your dreaming mind responds to what you are thinking and especially What you were feeling right if you wake up in a state of sleep paralysis And you don't know. What the heck is going on? A common reaction Is that you will either go from fear to full-blown terror or

54:46 If you go into a state of full-blown terror while you are dreaming and your eyes are open, so your eyes are open but you're still dreaming. Your dreams will pull into the deepest darkest nastiest well inside of you that it can to pull imagery out of. For some people their deepest darkest fear is to be abducted by aliens for other people it might be related to demons or devils or witches or something like that So when you are in sleep paralysis, your dreams respond to what you're feeling. And if what you feel is heavy fear then your dreams will create imagery and response to it. There is a study that suggests that many abduction experiences are actually resulting from sleep paralysis. Yeah, sleep paralysis was a weird one man I've always thought that was pretty fascinating

CHAPTER 15 / 18 Discussion

Animal Symbolism, Dogs and Messenger Birds

Animals in dreams are interpreted based on the dreamer's personal associations, with dogs frequently representing friendship or loyalty. A dream about a persistent dog that won't go away can symbolize a "hanger-on" friend in waking life that the dreamer is trying to distance themselves from. Birds, particularly black crows, often act as messengers from the subconscious parts of the mind that are being ignored.

dogs· cats· crows· carrier pigeons· friendship

55:40 I know a few people who are pretty hardcore materialists, who really don't have any interest in the paranormal or anything strange and they've had some sleep paralysis experiences that made them do a 180 on some of that stuff. And I also wanted to ask you, on the subject of major symbols that people see in dreams let me ask you about animals. Because we know animals as symbols is a common motif for a lot of cultures are there ones that appear most commonly in dreams or animals whose symbols are less ambiguous than others? Well, there are you know the animals that appear most often in my experience are the animals that are closest to us So it's probably going to be our pets or something that is presented as a pet and it's going to be that type of animal so you're talking about dogs cats birds and maybe fish and lizards but let's just stick to dogs and cats right now

56:33 You know, dreams begin with the things that we associate with the imagery in the dream. The symbol in the dream begins there and then it works based off a great symbolism around our associations So what that means is, when you think of a dog you are going to have certain thoughts that come to mind right away. It could be how you feel about dogs right now it could be how you feel about dogs in general it could be how you feel about a specific dog Like, if you are a dog lover and your beautiful golden retriever is sitting there next to you. You might bring up words in association with dogs that are how you feel about your retriever loyal friend.

57:21 Companion for other people it might be guardian but if you were kept up all night by your neighbors barking dog then you might describe a dog as a nuisance or as you know i want to kill the damn thing. So your dreams will begin with your associations and then it will build stories around it. And you can see those associations at work in how the dog is presented, in the story, how it looks and how it acts I find that probably the most common association for dogs and dreams is with friendship

58:01 The dog will represent the subject of friendship or a specific friend. I'll give you a quick example, there was a guy who came to the Reddit forum and he was very disturbed by a dream that he had He said that there was this dog that was being all friendly and following him around. And he decided that he didn't want the dog around anymore, so he tells the dog to go away and the dog is like oh you know it's like not getting the hint! So he says he pulls out a gun and he shoots the dog and the dog then still doesn't get the hint. The dog doesn't die, it's still kind of following him around so he pulls out some bigger weaponry and fires that at the dog and keeps going and the dog is just sort of unfazed by all this. So he comes to the forum and says man am I some kinda you know is there some deep dark side of me lurking behind the scenes that I don't know about

58:59 You know, I'm this cruel animal killer or whatever. And I said, OK, well first of all you need to understand that the dream imagery is symbolic it's figurative it's telling a story don't take the imagery literally no matter how shocking the imagery is It's not making a moral statement about you There are a few exceptions to that rule where dreams kind of create scenarios like the holodeck in Star Trek and they can help you to realize what you really think and feel. But most dreams, you've got to strip out that literal interpretation of the imagery and you have to look at it as symbolism, as figurative

59:40 In this case, what we traced it back to is the guy has somebody who you might call a friend who was sort of this hanger-on and he has gotten tired of her. And he decided that he was going to start dropping hints that says bug out So he did that and the girl, the friend supposed friend did not get the hint. So he started getting a little meaner and a little nastier and she just it was just going right over her head she wasn't getting it So in the action of him shooting the dog and then pulling out heavier and heavier weapons to shoot the dog, And the dog does not die. It just keeps following him around all friendly-like is really describing this situation with a person that he's trying to get rid off

1:00:31 So that's how you take an imagery like that and you break it down. With animals, we talked about associations but you can also think about the qualities of the animal, the ways they are used in stories even in cartoons because animals are often shown as being human-like. In stories like say The Lion King Or the movie ants now we've taken this creature and we've given it a life. And if you are taking in that kind of media or you also see it a lot like commercials and stuff, well now you have a really wide set or base of associations and ideas that could be used to talk about human

1:01:15 stories, but using animals to symbolize it. Like take the fact that birds fly well what could flying represent? Well how about freedom? How about the fact that birds were used as messengers I mean there are no more carrier pigeons that we know about but birds were used as messengers so they can be messages from the subconscious side of the mind It can be something that says, hey are you getting the message and if you are maybe the bird then attacks you. And what it really represents is that there is something inside of you that is saying hey give me your attention here hey your trying to ignore me and more you would know me the more i am going to get insistent that you pay attention to me

1:02:04 So that's what a bird, especially a black crow man. I find that a lot you know the black crow dream and it makes you feel really creepy and its because the crew represents a message from the dark side of your mind dark meaning outside of your conscious awareness So yeah, animals are one that I would include Greg with that list that we were making of common dream symbols because they really do come up a lot. And I think it's because there is this great variety A.) of animals and B.) the associations that we have with those animals that can be used to create symbolism and tell stories

CHAPTER 16 / 18 Discussion

Dreams123 System, Educational Resources and Sign-off

J.M. DeBoard details his "Dreams 1-2-3" system and encourages listeners to use his dictionary as a bedside guide for self-discovery. He offers an online correspondence course and a newsletter titled "We Love Dreams" to help people decode their own symbolism without needing a PhD. The segment concludes with a reminder that interpreting dreams is simply the act of remembering what the subconscious already knows.

dreams123· dream interpretation dictionary· rad owl· newsletter· correspondence course

1:02:43 Absolutely, man. And there's definitely a ton of very potent symbols when it comes to animals, bears, owls, snakes... There are just a ton of them and what Well, right on. This has been a fun time for sure I think dreaming and sleep in general are things we kind of take for granted and dreams are often such personal experiences you can never really do them justice when you try to tell other people And a lot of times were just stuck with this weirdness to deal with alone so hopefully this was interesting maybe even therapeutic for some people Last but not least, before we go tell the people where they can follow up with you or dig deeper into your work since we know this wasn't going to be enough. Well of course! You know I have the Dream Interpretation Dictionary Symbols Signs and Meanings it's on the market right now it's at places like Amazon Barnes & Noble Target Books A Million Indiegogo want to make sure I mention the small ones because they're just as important for your business too and its there in bookstores also

1:03:43 It is it's four hundred and eighty pages man and i poured everything i know into that book i give you a guide in the back of its called figuring out your dreams and it's about thirty pages explains my dreams one two three system of dream work of interpreting dreams You basically go through the story, you make associations. You tie the details together. five minutes. I kid you not now it might take you a few hours the first time to really read through and digest everything but once you have that base of knowledge, you can get in and then start to use the dictionary. You wake up from a dream and it was a zombie. It was an alien. It was your ex. You know you dream you're getting married. You're driving in your car. Your

1:04:39 building a home, you know. You're in school, you're standing there naked, you're flying and falling, you know? You are being chased whatever it is that there are symbolic possibilities for all of these things and I go into real depth in detail about this. I don't just give the standard one two three sentence or 2-3 paragraphs even. I can really go into depth than I approach most symbols almost like writing little essays. I want to teach you how to figure out this for yourself." The thing that annoys the crap out of me about dream dictionaries is they will just give you the definition, but they don't tell you how they reached that conclusion. You know? Like oh i had a dream that i had crazy frizzy hair or you know when you look it up in the dream dictionary and it says your thoughts are disordered and you go... Oh okay well why

1:05:33 Well, because hair grows from your head and your thoughts grow from your head. And now you look at crazy frizzy, you know? In hair grows out it's an extension of something like thoughts are extensions out of the head, you know? And you go okay well that makes sense most dream dictionaries don't explain how they reach their conclusions they just give you the information so I wanted to always at every point where i could explain How do I reach these conclusions? How do I teach you to do it for yourself? how do I teach you to look at your dreams as stories told through symbolism that are helping you to learn and grow that there is meaning and significance in

1:06:14 that the symbolism is a language and there's a way of following the patterns to that language. How do I do this? Well, I give you a guide to figuring out your dreams and then I give you a dictionary with more than 750 entries in it that repeats the things that I say but specifically to the dream symbol so its reminding you what I have taught you in the beginning. So now you can use the dream interpretation dictionary as your lifelong guide, do keep it there by your bedside? You wake up from a dream, you write it down and then you dig in and you go okay well there was an interesting metaphor in this stream let's see what this guy has to say about metaphors. You know I remember a symbol from the dream okay yeah let's look at that symbol you know and so now you start to put all the pieces together

1:07:02 That is the best place to go. And also dreams123.net I have a lot of comments on some of the dreams such as I talk about snakes and pregnancy dreams and death dreams, and people are picking up these results. People around the world man! I watch the search engine results and it's crazy! I got people everywhere who are picking up the results off of my website And they're coming there or they're hearing about me on programs like yours and they're deciding They're gonna dig deep and i'll see them you know Digged into 10 or 15 or more articles on my website and they'll spend hours They're just reading through all of this

1:07:38 I do have one other thing. I want to suggest for your listeners look up We love dreams newsletter as one search phrase, I know at Google it will come up as the first result and in most other search engines It will also I haven't tried them all The point is you look up we love dreams newsletter by JM to board or rad owl at reddit That's how I kind of Promote myself the newsletter started off as a reddit dreams forum newsletter for pointing out really interesting dreams that we've had submitted there and interesting discussions and over time it's evolved into sort of my personal platform for communicating to people who want to stay in touch with me And then I created an online dream interpretation correspondence course

1:08:25 Basically at my site is everything that you need to know to start off with dream interpretation including remembering dreams and decoding dream symbolism and then looking at all these different aspects like how do I make associations? And what does it mean when I have strong emotions in dreams and stuff like that. So, I take it all and give it to you as emails that will automatically be sent to You give me your email address and your first name, last name if you want to. It's not necessary." And then you punch it in and you immediately start getting these emails sent to you. And it will give you everything that you need to know to at least get started

1:09:03 And if you like me, the way that I present this information. I'm pretty loose about this man and I'm the radical owl so I'm not going to be sitting there hitting you over top of the head with a bunch of big words and stuff. You know what? A few here in there but the point is that I want to explain this in ways that's very accessible and understandable for people. You don't need to have a PhD in psychiatry to understand your dreams. What you need really is Here it is to understand that what you are doing is remembering what you already know. When you interpret your dream, you are reminding yourself of what you already know because you invented the dream when you start there You go oh Okay well the dreams a story and I invented it to send a message from one side of my brain to the other hmm

1:09:54 Well, how do I remind myself of what I already know? Then everything else about Dream Interpretation launches from there. Hmm awesome! There it is and no doubt Dreams are definitely a curious thing and it's a rabbit hole worth traveling town once in awhile so definitely thanks for this! JM DeBoerde aka Rad Owl aka Mr Sandman himself Thanks again and dream on Right on brother thank you for introducing me to your audience and having me on the show i really appreciate it great. You got a man thanks for being here how lay loo yeah hello people jm de borde dream interpretation symbolism and subconscious i think this was pretty fun show and is great, to be back talking to people again july two thousand seventeen

CHAPTER 17 / 18 Discussion

July 2017 Recap, Tulum Honeymoon and Future Guests

Host Greg Carlwood reflects on his July 2017 wedding and honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico, featuring snorkeling in cenotes and visiting Mayan ruins. He mentions hosting Gordon White and teases an upcoming "dark" episode with recurring guest Tracy Twyman. Carlwood also notes the strange prevalence of abduction dreams among his close friends, highlighting the overlap between personal anecdotes and the show's themes.

tulum· gordon white· tracy twyman· cenotes· mayan ruins

1:10:42 Gotta say probably the best month of my life having all my friends out from home at the same time was amazing anyone is ever relocated knows how it would feel to have like two dozen of your closest friends come out at the same time. So great and the wedding was on point and a ton of fun having Gordon White in town was a blast we actually broke him into his first game of beer pong believe it or not, I was definitely the one that brought down our team. I also have a friend Mark who can be a bit of a bullshitter but he's also a level 2 sommelier, you know a wine guy back home and to hear him and Gordon wasted talking about wines from around the world was just hilarious for me. And Gordon thought it was hilarious that Mark does have all this knowledge of the world's wines but has zero desire to travel! He is just a character and it was a lot of fun all-around

1:11:41 The honeymoon in Tulum was excellent. Mayan ruins right on the beach, huge iguanas crawling all over the place We snorkeled in the cenotes which are like caves of water we got into one with hundreds of bats and of course a nice oil slick of bat shit on the surface of the water that I couldn't get past to fully enjoy myself We snorkeled out in the reef, in the ocean and saw these huge sea turtles like inches from us. And we saw a big manta ray it was pretty incredible I didn't get to swim with dolphins because apparently they were out of season near the reef and I guess the only option was some semi tame or enclosed dolphin place...and I didn't want to do it like that

1:12:25 But I could not have asked for a better break, a better time or a better wife. And I recorded this show actually before i left but there just wasn't enough time to get it edited beforehand so...I'm getting out now and also did some fixing on the broken feed so make sure you refresh them and they should update! And I am still in process of moving apartments too We didn't think we were busy enough in July I guess so we also decided to move across town or back to Pacific Beach because i could not stand being under the airport flight path every once in a while on THC episodes you can hear a plane flying over and it's just annoying and its finally gone. But, I've got two more days to finish moving and two more days to hitch with at least one more show for July and I will tell you

1:13:14 I recorded it also before i left and its exciting. Its the return of a pretty popular guest, Tracy Twyman So we have a pretty nice calm light one today about dreams and a deep dark one with Tracy about the stuff of nightmares coming up soon But hopefully you liked this episode. I got my man's dream interpretation dictionary from the publisher and it was so thick, and i just thought hell yeah! Dreams and their meanings would be a great topic not talked about nearly enough And I hope you found something interesting in it It is very odd how as diverse as dreams can be we still have these reoccurring threads and narratives that play through a lot of our heads

1:13:57 the teeth falling out stuff, the being naked in front of a crowd stuff. The being in school again or not being able to graduate and not having the credits or whatever... A lot of people have those kind of things going on their dreams I actually learned and I can't put them on blast but two friends that were hanging out the wedding week actually started talking about abduction dreams that they have recurring ones It was just really interesting to see these two people from totally separate areas of my life and ones describing Oh, I have these shadow figures and there's the edge of my bed And then I have to look over at them. And right when I look at him That's when they rush me and the other dudes like yep Yep, absolutely. And then does this happen? He's like yeah Yeah, yeah, and then does that happen and I was like holy shit I've known these guys for a while didn't necessarily know that they were having these kind of dreams but

1:14:52 One of them does listen to THC and he's one of the few friends from high school that actually does so maybe there is a connection there. He's down with the weirdness for sure but I've now recently learned three people close to me have routine abduction dreams and that's just crazy you think you know a guy right? You just never ask I have another friend who i also can't put on blast you won't go see alien movies and i didn't really understand why. And then i found out he had an experience that you don't even want to talk about but it also won't go see any aliens themed movies because of that

1:15:31 So, pretty all-encompassing episode in terms of dreams. If you think there's something we didn't get to in the first hour we probably covered it in the second. We talked about dreams and DMT, shared dreams even at different times, cases of prophetic dreams and picking winning lottery tickets in the dream state getting insight into past lives in your dreams Falling in love and dreams with people that we never met in waking life, but always remember I've had that experience and also cases where we do actually meet the people that we fell in love within dreams how to increase stream retention You know all great stuff. So I think it was a solid return Really actually loved The Magnora 7 episode That was right before I left about the Rothschild's carving up Africa

CHAPTER 18 / 18 Discussion

Higher Side Chats Outro, Musical Wrap-up

The episode concludes with a thematic musical outro referencing conspiracy culture, secret societies, and the daily grind of the "nine-to-five" lifestyle. The lyrics touch on Jungian archetypes, lucid dreaming, and the Rothschild family, mirroring the episode's blend of psychology and the paranormal. The show officially signs off, encouraging listeners to escape the mundane and embrace the weirdness.

higher side chats· bohemia grove· bilderberg· rothschild· outro music

1:16:22 That was full of interesting stuff. And we got Tracy coming up next, so... We are back in the saddle guys and riding on through to the promised land and I'll see you soon! Your move Jungian archetypes subconscious characters and lucid dreamers your fucking leave Lucid dreams are so vivid, cause you go to bed at seven And your brain comes alive because you hate your nine-to-five You wake up with a dread and make sure your cats are fed Did your brain talk to a ghost who moved your coffee and toast As you listen to the higher side chats

1:17:03 You get to your desk and your boss says it's a mess And you soul slowly goes to a place where nothing grows When you think he's not around, you insert a SETI sound The OM says turn it down and you say its just the high side chats Who do ya think could be invited? To Bohemia Grove. To a Bilderberg club Who do ya think could be invited By a Rothschild to a party on a submarine Diving down To the center of the earth Through the Marianas Trench Your teeth begin to clench From the sulfurous stench The mask you're given doesn't fit Because you're not one of them

1:17:59 Starting today, you'll make plans to get away. There's no one to hold you down and the what-ifs start to drown Then you wake to the glare of a cofluorescent stare And the light winks at you cause its life is almost through But it's holding on to quit time just like you It's time for the High Side Chats the